20 Amazing Facts About Ants You Never Knew

Ants are considered quite active and sharp insects. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that there are different species of ants that are found in different parts of the world. Facts about ants are list of different kinds of interesting facts about ants that you never knew before.

These amazing and interesting facts about ants will give you answer to different questions about ants. We have selected this article in order to discuss some interesting and amazing facts about ants.

1. Smartest Species of Insects

This is considered as one of the most interesting fact about the ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that the animal with the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant. They are known to the smartest species of insects with about 250,000 brain cells.

2. Agriculture

This is also considered another interesting and amazing fact about ants. Ants began farming about 50 million years before human even thought to raise their own crops. Leafcutter ants grow mushrooms to feed their colony which requires a sophisticated system of vents and tunnels to control the humidity and temperature.

3. Warfare Techniques

Different types of warfare techniques are also found in the ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that separate species, or hostile of the same species, may be massed in combat, which can be continued for hours, days or weeks.

Amazon ants have been observed surrounding an enemy nest and simply sitting and waiting while their victims became more and more frenzied by the camped-out menace.

4. Total Biomass of Ants

This is also considered as another important and interesting fact about ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that the ants make up 1/10 of the total world animal tissues. The total biomass of all the ants on Earth is roughly equal to the total biomass of all the people on Earth.

5. Formation of Supercolonies

This interesting fact about ants comes to number five on the list. Different types of research studies have shown this fact that different species of ants form supercolonies. For example, Invasive Argentine ants form large supercolonies in California.

These colonies stretch for hundreds of miles and include millions of nests. Ants from different nests of the same colony rarely show aggression toward each other. The largest supercolony in southern California extends some 600 miles and borders three smaller colonies.

6. Lifespan of Ants

There are different opinions about the facts about lifespan of ants. There are different types of research reports showing the fact that workers only live for about 45-60 days, but a colony’s queen can live up to 20 years. And when she dies, the colony can only survive a few months after that at best. Queens are only rarely replaced.

7. Carnivores

This is also considered another important and amazing fact about the ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that in Africa and tropical parts of the Asia, there are different kinds of ants that are capable of killing and consuming anything in their massed path.

Sometimes called the driver ants, safari ants, these ants are powerful hunters that can number over 20 million to a colony, and they use those numbers to their advantages.

8. Ranchers

This is also considered another interesting fact about the ants. Ants’ farm, gather, hunt and raise animals and these are called the ranching ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact hat honey ants feed off the sweet honey that aphids secrete. The ants milk them like cows. Aphid-herding ants make sure their “cattle” stay well fed and safe.

9. Slavery

This interesting fact about the ants comes to number nine on the list. The slave-maker ant is so named because it raids the nest of the other ants and steals their pupae. Once the pupae hatch, they are made to work as slaves within the colony. Different types of research studies have shown this fact that quite a few ant species will take captives from other ant species, forcing them to do chores for their own colony.

10. Castes

This is also considered another important and interesting fact about the ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that each colony has different kinds of ants including the workers, soldiers, drones and the queen and princess ants. Workers ants are considered the most common ants in a colony.

It is a small, sterile, female ant. While soldiers ants are the larger, sterile, female ants who protect the colony, while the only male ants in a colony are the winged-drones who are born from unfertilized eggs. The princess ant has wings, but clips them after her nuptial fight with a drone ant, using them as a source of protein for the new family.

11. Legs

This is also considered another interesting fact about the ants. Ants have six legs as do all the insects. Each leg of ant is composed of three joints. They can lift 20 times their body weight.

12. Age

The workers ants live between 45 and 60 days/ But there is another interesting fact that might fascinate you and it says that the Queen ants can live for up to 20 years.

13. Sensation

This is also considered another interesting fact about the ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that the ants use their antenna for both the touch and smell.

14. Eyes

As far as the eyes of the ants are concerned, there are different types of research reports that have shown this fact that the ants have two compound eyes. There are eyes which are made up of smaller eyes.

15. Two Stomachs

This is also considered another important and amazing fact about the ants. Different types of research studies have shown this fact that they have two stomachs. One is for the ant’s personal use. The other is to share food with the community.

16. Living food-storage containers

In some ant species, when food is plentiful, young adults are fed as much food as possible. They become stuffed until they get big and fat and become living food-storage container.

17. Job Description of Ants

This is also considered another interesting and amazing fact about the ants. The queen’s job is to lay the eggs. The sterile worker ants look after her eggs by finding food, looking after the young and defending the nest from unwanted visitors.

18. Do not Sting

There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that the black and wood ants do not sting, but they can squirt a spray of formic acid. This thing leads some birds to put ants in their feathers because the formic acid repels the parasites.

19. Movement of Eggs

This interesting fact about the ants comes to number nineteen on the list. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that the workers ants move the eggs and larvae deep into the nest at night to protect them from the cold. In the morning, they move the eggs and larvae of the colony of up to the top of the nest to get the warmth from the sun.

20. Total Number of Ants

This is also considered another interesting and amazing fact about the ants. There are different types of research reports that have clearly shown this fact that there are 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants living on the earth.